Lofoten Apartments is located right at the waterfront on the east bank of Hopsfjorden on the island of Austvågøy. The district called Hopen have practised fishing and agriculture for centuries. History tells of great activity around the 18th century, with as many as 1500 fishermen, divided on 475 boats all had their harbour in this small fjord. The narrow passage into the bay provides excellent shelter from the open ocean just a few minutes away with boat.
“Our story started in 2014 when we bought this hidden gem of a house in Hopen, that for years was left empty and abandoned. We renovated it and made it into a vacation rental getaway. Our vision and drive has always been the possibility to give other people a firsthand experience of how incredibly wild and beautiful this place is – which is also the reason we fell in love with Lofoten many years ago.”
“We” consists of Erik from Oslo and Fredrikke from Bærum in Norway.
Erik experienced Lofoten for the first time in 2010 after a snowboard contest in Riksgränsen, and immediatly fell for the place.
For Erik, a ten year long career as a professional snowboarder, consisted of a lot of traveling to different locations around the world to film. But Lofoten had become a place he constantly felt drawn to.
Four years after his first encounter with the majestic north, he exchanged the snowboard career with a more quite life, north of the arctic circle.
Fredrikke spent her 20s in a rootless state, where she switched between studies and moving across borders. After spending a year in Perth, she moved back to Oslo in 2014 to study acupuncture at the college there.
The same summer she met Erik, who two weeks later moved up north to start a project that later became Lofoten Apartments. After three years of studies in Oslo and commuting to Lofoten, she finally moved permanently to where mountain meets the sea.
They have since then run and developed Lofoten Apartments to what it is today, a vacation getaway right in the heart of Lofoten.
About the house in Hopen, Lofoten
Lofoten Apartments is located right at the waterfront on the east bank of Hopsfjorden on the island of Austvågøy. The district called Hopen have practised fishing and agriculture for centuries. History tells of great activity around the 18th century, with as many as 1500 fishermen, divided on 475 boats all had their harbour in this small fjord. The narrow passage into the bay provides excellent shelter from the open ocean just a few minutes away with boat.
Hopen is the ideal location for your Lofoten holiday. It lays right between Henningsvær and Kabelvåg, the two most iconic villages in Lofoten.
The building was constructed in 1946 as a fish processing plant and where one of the last additions to the commercial fishing in Hopen.
During the 1980`s Hopen Fisk (Hopen Fish) was established and with modern technology and more efficient procedures they quickly outcompeted the smaller factories in the bay. Our building had its last operative day somtime in 1988. Since then the building has been abandoned and kept empty until 2014 when Lofoten Apartments bought the property and renovated the house. Today it consists of three fully furnished vacation rental homes and offers visitors a modern standard in amazing surroundings.
A short walk from the house you will find Hopen Fisk, one of the last remaining factories in the area. They specialise in herring, halibut and whale. During the summer season they have a small retail shop selling fresh fish directly to consumers.
By car you can quickly access Henningsvær. Its a beautiful village on the south-west tip of Austvågøy island. the drive itself amazing and with clear weather you will see the whole Lofoten wall and the island chain streching almost 150km out to sea.
A short drive east and you enter Kabelvåg, its the oldest village in northern Norway and worth a visit. A few minutes further east you will get to Svolvær which is the main town on the island and offers a wide variety of shops, resturants and cafes.
Arriving by plane : Svolvær – 17km, Evenes – 175km, Leknes – 58km
Arriving by boat : Kabelvåg- 8km, Svolvær – 12km, Mosknes – 115km
